The Short Story of Billy Christ

As we know from the testaments of Bruce, Bubba, Gordon, and Jerry, Billy Christ was Jesus’ younger brother. He tried to imitate Jesus but he was not quite as powerful or successful….

He never turned water into wine, but he could turn beer into urine. He never performed any miracles, but he could sometimes manage to provide a good coincidence.

Once or twice he – and four or five of his Hecklers – had a deja vu experience at a gathering, and once, in a fit of laughing over-joyousness, he was able to pass cheese through his nose. (Not a miracle, but a damn good show for my money.) It is said he ate forty loaves of bread and forty fishes in one sitting and that he invented the first water skis. It is also said that he could hold his breath underwater for up to twenty-three shakes of a lamb’s tail.

His story begins, according to the testament of Bruce, in the little town of Bethlehem. All the stables were overflowing with messianic wannabees, so he was born in the best inn in town. At the moment of his birth, lightning struck the roof of the inn and it caught fire. The inn was soon entirely consumed and the flaming inferno could be seen for miles around.

Shepherds watching their flocks by night saw the distant blaze and wondered what it was that caught fire, “I wonder what it was that caught fire,’ said one shepherd. ‘I’ll wager good goat meat it’s that big new inn,’ said the other.” [Bruce 1:21].

Not much is known of his childhood. Bruce doesn’t say much and the other testaments say nothing at all until he began his ministry at the age of 32 after his cousin Johnny Baptist tried to drown him in a river.

It seems he caused a disturbance wherever he went and usually someone got hurt. Bruce inadvertently caught him in a fishing net and immediately became his first Heckler. Bubba, Gordon, and Jerry (and sometimes Marvin, oftentimes referred to as the “fifth” Heckler) soon joined him.

His most revealing thoughts come from his “Sermon from the Fountain,” where he tells us not to look too closely at what your right hand is doing. He was arrested for 30 pieces of silver he tried to take from the fountain after concluding the sermon with, “Give to me that which is Caesar’s!”

He became so intoxicated when he was released that he fell unconscious for three days and it was sometimes hard to tell if he was dead or alive.

Shortly afterwards, he died under the wheel of a donkey cart while chasing after a prostitute. His last words were to the driver, “Curse you, you fat head! Why don’t you look where you are going?”